Dumbledore's Age

[Tonks]

No: HPFGUIDX 155082

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Laura Lynn Walsh <lwalsh at ...> 
wrote:
>
> If DD and Flamel worked on something different,
> what might it have been?  It must have been something
> important, as Flamel had most likely been retired by
> the time DD was born, let alone by the time he would
> have been old enough to be a worthy partner.  It couldn't
> have been dragon's blood, or that would have been
> written up a bit differently on the card.  It must have
> had something to do with alchemy.  Anybody know
> more about alchemy's goals other than changing base
> metals to gold?

Tonks:
Alchemy is not the literal changing of base metals to gold. It is a 
spiritual process. There were many monks and other religious persons 
that were alchemist. There were those for whom alchemy was a 
precursor to chemistry, but for many it was a spiritual process of 
changing our base nature to that of Christ.  (Or if you like a more 
psychological way, the process evolving to our highest self.)  I 
think that this can be one of the many themes in the HP books and it 
would fit with DD being a partner of Flamel. 

I am not well versed in alchemy so I have been reading on the 
subject in my detective work to decipher the HP series.  I am 
current reading something called "Aurora Consurgens" which was 
thought to have been written by Thomas Aquinas, but was probably 
not.  It was thought that he, like many other Religious of the time, 
was an alchemist.

The first thing I noticed about this was the title.  Auror plus an 
a.  hum
  This is a very obscure work and I am sure that JKR has 
never seen it, but still..  makes you wonder how she came up with 
the Auror title for the police force of the WW.

Tonks_op